Labor Day

Eisenhower meeting with labor
leaders George Meany and
Walter Reuther

I'm a member emeritus of two labor unions -- the Aluminum Workers of America, and the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite, and Paper Mill Workers.  I had summer jobs in mills in my home town.  All the mills were union shops, meaning I was required to join a union after being employed.

Union membership never seemed like an odd or unfair requirement.  I was obtaining the benefits of union contracts; in return, I was agreeing to a small deduction of union dues from my paycheck.  Unions were a familiar part of the American scene.

On a more macroscopic scale, the front pages of newspapers were full of stories of union-management conflict.  To a degree that now seems odd, huge industries dominated America.  Huge unions kept them in check.  When industry wide contracts in steel or autos or coal mining expired, strikes were almost inevitable.  These strikes were orderly affairs, more so than strikes we read about at the time in Britain and other countries.

Contracts were negotiated, with the possibility or reality of strikes an inducement to all parties to settle.  Strikes were a careful dance, with ground rules enforced both by the NLRB and the mutual self-interest of workers and management.  Even so, nationwide strikes in major industries were threats to national security, and a matter of concern far beyond the parties involved.  The most famous example of public concern was the looming steel strike in 1952, leading to President Truman's temporary seizure of the steel mills.

We no longer have unionized nationwide industries of such importance.  We no longer have strikes with the potential of devastating the economy.  We also no longer have a vast number of industrial employees protected from unfair practices and able to earn middle class wages thanks to their membership in unions.

Labor Day is no longer a celebration of labor.  We no longer see photos of smiling presidents, both Democratic and Republican, meeting with union leaders.  We no longer rejoice in unions' contribution to the American dream.  Labor Day is just a holiday. 

Now we have a president -- elected by the descendants of yesterday's unionized workers -- who celebrates Labor Day by sitting alone in his office, tweeting his disdain for the President of the AFL-CIO.

  Unfortunately, to date, the things that he's done to hurt workers outpace what he's done to help workers.

His contempt for the person holding an office whose occupants were once among the great power brokers of the nation reveals the changes in America over the past half century -- changes both political and economic.